TERRE HAUTE, Indiana -- Terre Haute Police Officer Rob Pitts has been identified as the law enforcement officer killed Friday evening in Terre Haute.
Pitts was a 16-year veteran of the department, according to THPD Public Information Officer Ryan Adamson.
"Rob is deeply missed, but we are grateful for the time we had with him. Thank you for your continued prayers," Adamson said in a news release.
For those wanting to pay their respects, police will be moving Officer Pitts from Regional Hospital to DeBaun Funeral home at 1 p.m. The route will be southbound on Seventh Street to westbound Springhill road.
Local churches have also arranged a prayer vigil at 6 p.m. today at the Vigo County Courthouse.
Officer Pitts and three others were working on a homicide investigation that began earlier in the day on South 18th Street in Terre Haute.
They had developed information on a suspect in that killing and were approaching an apartment in The Garden Quarter, an apartment complex along Jessica Drive south of Terre Haute.
As they approached the apartment on Linwood Street just after 6:30 p.m., the officers were fired upon from a second-story window almost immediately and they returned fire, police said.
Pitts, though rushed from the site, succumbed to his wounds at Terre Haute Regional Hospital.
After the shooting, police engaged in a standoff with the barricaded suspect, who has not been named, that lasted until just before 9:20 p.m.
The standoff came to an end when Terre Haute police special response team officers made entry into the apartment through a second-floor window by way of a ladder.
Upon finding the man, police did call for a medic. Radio traffic at first seemed to indicate the suspect might be alive, but police later announced he had died.
Police said he succumbed to wounds suffered in the initial exchange of gunfire.
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